Nvidia Unleashes Entry-Level DirectX 11 Graphics Boards

Nvidia Corp. on Monday formally released the GeForce GT 430 graphics card, the least expensive product based on Fermi architecture. The company positions the novelty for multimedia-centric personal computers and mostly against integrated graphics cores as well as entry-level graphics adapters. Noteworthy is that that the company has started to ship code-named GF108 chip some time back.

Nvidia GeForce GT 430 graphics processor sports 96 stream processing units operating at 1400MHz, 700MHz clock-speed. The chip has 128-bit memory controller that supports various types of memory, but initially graphics cards based on GF108 will be equipped with 1800MHz DDR3 memory. Power consumption of the novelty is in the range of 50W and many partners of Nvidia plan to release them in low-profile form-factor.

Nvidia claims that the main advantages of the GeForce GT 430 is its 50% performance increase compared to GT 220, high level of compatibility with modern games compared to integrated graphics cores, DirectX 11 support, advanced video engine with Blu-ray 3D support as well as support for protected audio path that is needed to bit-stream lossless multi-channel audio to external decoders using HDMI bus.

The GF108 graphics processing unit has already been esigned into a variety of desktop and notebook platforms from the world's leading OEMs, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI, Samsung, Sony and others.

The GeForce GT 430 is available as an add-in card from the world's leading suppliers, including ASL, ASUS, Colorful, ECS, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, Jetway, KFA2, Leadtek, MSI, Palit, Point of View, PNY, Sparkle, Zotac and others. Pricing of GeForce GT 430 will vary, but will be lower than $100.